Pritchard explained that micronaire is an indication of the cotton’s maturity, and this growing season was cut a bit short because of a cool, wet September and an early freeze. For that reason, some of the cotton did not have enough time to reach full maturity.

Pritchard said low mic was not a problem during the first half of the season, but lately it has become an issue.

Adair explained that low micronaire along with some issues with barky cotton have caused a drop in loan value from the 54-57 cent range to around 50-52 cents. Some cotton has even dropped to the mid-40s, he said.

Clarence Riley, gin manager at United Farm Industries, said about 70-80 percent of the cotton he has seen has been low micronaire. He added that his gin has fought barky cotton "all year long," which is unusual.

While low micronaire has caused some drop in loan value of this year’s crop, it still should be marketable, Pritchard said.

"There seems to still be a market for low-mic cotton, as well as base-mic," he said.